I’m not here for a long time; I’m here for a good time
May 14th, 2012 by Rebel MopeAs these pages are devoid of my personal data, I thought I might tell you a story. It is the story of medicine and how things go terribly, terribly wrong. Or right, as my case might be.
I was partying like it was 1999 some four years ago, July of ’08, just months before the coronation of the historically unprecedented mulatto. I was at a cookout at a local restaurant where the Sam Adams flowed and Black John cooked ribs and yard bird. John is a talkative sort who will regale you with stories of how he would confound strangers by asking if they new what NAACP stands for. He would tell them Negros Are Actually Colored Pollacks. They invariably would not laugh so as not to offend. I laughed. That was my big mistake. He hasn’t shut up since. He makes the best damn bar-b-que sauce on the planet.
Nevertheless, Black John’s cleanliness is impeccable, especially while cooking. Once, I witnessed someone just open his food and he tossed it in the garbage.
I write this to show what happened next could not possibly be his fault. For the next day when I went for some of the ‘hair of the dog’, it struck. I mean bad. Never eat day old chicken. Usually, Sam Adams will flush your system, but this strain had a mind of its own.
At the same time, I was having some bouts of lightheadedness which I had chalked up to drinking and smoking to my heart’s content. Once or twice as I stood up from my bar stool, I hit the floor. No big deal. Get up, take a leak, and have another beer. No big deal.
Except the bartender was a female. You know, one of them squishy “ambulance calling at the drop of a hat” types. I would have no part of it. So she cut me off from my plasma. No Big Deal. There a thousand gin-mills around here. On my way to the next my friend’s wife calls me to have a drink. It was a set-up. As I was walking up her driveway the chicken started barking in my stomach. As I was leaning over the fence trying to decide which end it was coming out she came out trying to talk me into going to the hospital. Absolutely not. I walked home barely making it.
Then her husband calls me. “Lemme take you to the hospital.” No. No. A Thousand times no. Two minutes later my brother calls. Just to get him of my back I relented. What a mistake. Drunk at the hospital on a Friday night is a buzz-kill. After waiting around for a break in the shooting victims, they ran some tests. Then some more. Then again more. There was waiting, and more waiting. The three people in the next room were loudly discussing there sexual proclivities. My brother kindly asked them to pipe down. He must’ve have been referring to the crack pipe.
Then, finally the intern waltzed in and began with the old “I don’t know how to tell you this…” It lasted about two minutes until I was just about reaching for his throat. I don’t understand why they got to pretend they’re Marcus Welby, M.D., but whoever told them that’s how to break bad news ought to be horse whipped. “We think you have metastasized brain cancer.”
I about burst out laughing. What held me back was the look on my brother and my friend’s faces. All the while this hack of a doctor was telling me this, I’m thinking “I’m glad this isn’t a maternity hospital, he’d say I’m pregnant.” After he left the boys were completely dumbstruck. I actually felt sorry for them, they were so distraught. “It is what it is,” I said.
One of the things that goes through your mind is that someone is going to go through your stuff if you die and I needed to throw out some letters and photos, if you get my drift. More like burn them. If I could only get out of there.
Sleeping in the hospital is impossible. They wake you every two hours or so, and here’s a little tip for the visitors- don’t ask a bunch of questions that the patient already answered. It’s annoying. I didn’t want to explain eighteen times everything- I just wanted to sleep. Dammit.
Then came the parade of doctors, each aghast at my consumption rates- well, what I admitted to. I swear I could have inebriated the whole bevy with a bottle of chardonnay. They took turns asking me to squeeze their fingers together as hard as I could. These pinheads had no idea I could have crushed them like a bug. They would be playing the piano with their toes. I was afraid some might want to become surgeons so I didn’t snap the tiny uncalloused little pretzels. I’m compassionate that way. Or maybe I couldn’t get a good grip.
For cancer to metastasize, it has to come from somewhere else. So they looked. A CAT scan. Full body X-ray. Blood. Lumbar drain (Spinal tap for you people in Rio Linda.) More blood. Then they took me to the MRI. After three days of them poking and prodding, I could have gone through with it, but I had enough of the charade. I told them I didn’t fit in their machine and so they scheduled an “open MRI”. That meant I would have to leave the campus. And I could finally have a smoke. Thus, I plotted my escape.
I had top promise not to smoke and go to this open MRI to be released. Like I couldn’t escape if I really wanted to. So I did.
The Open MRI was uneventful, save the TV had some soap opera on that was giving me a headache. And the nurse who I informed I don’t like needles, didn’t quite understand. Later, my mother, a nurse, told me I should use more forceful language in the future, like “I can become violent at the sight of a needle.” They seem to understand that.
Thinking my nightmare was over and smoking away on the way home, I recieved a call from the pinheaded doctor. He wanted me to submit to another spinal tap. They say you should ask a lot of questions, so I began with “What was wrong with the last one? Was it abnormal?” No, he said it was fine. “Did you do it incorrectly?” Oh, no, no no. He just wanted to do it again. I asked him to politely go pound sand. Thinking back, that must have been the single most painful thing that I have ever been through in my life.
Some weeks later, I visited the bigshot doctor in his office. They couldn’t find where this metastasized from and the wanted to drill several holes in my skull to mine for one to find out what kind it was- to effectuate a treatment. This guy just oozed confidence and he was certain he could figure out what it was within fifteen minutes of the procedure. Only one problem- after drilling the holes they would have to wake me for the biopsy.
My old man used to say some pretty nifty things. One of the things he would say was “I need this like I need a hole in my head.” Obviously, this was an instance where this axiom applied.
I decided that my course of action was to do nothing. That’s right. Nothing. Some people were shocked that I would give up so easily, others were downright telling me I had to do the procedure. Still others wanted me to get right with God. (Little do they know I’ve already been down that path. I just don’t talk about it.) Considering the alternative, and the circumstances, it was clearly the correct choice.
Then, lightening struck again. My brother, who is 3 years younger, was diagnosed with Astrocytoma a year ago, three years after my diagnosis, such that it was. His prognosis is bleak.
I dare not put in these pages my contempt for the medical profession not just for the way they scared his wife into the operation and subsequent radiation/chemotherapy. I will state here on this page his doctors refused my offer to send them my records.
Anyway, I must go. I hope someone can fill these pages in my absence with something pithy. And cheerful.
Always remember my motto: “I’m not here for a long time; I’m here for a good time.”
Consider taking up that motto. Sometimes it pays off.







